Most of our readers are probably aware that an act was passed at the last session of the legislature for the establishment of a Normal School (i. e. for the education of teachers of common schools) to be located in the county of Albany. At the same time, a munificent endowment was provided of ten thousand dollars per annum for the term of five years, to be de voted to the salaries of teachers, the purchase of school furniture and apparatus, and the support, if necessary, of those who may become pupils. The expense of a building will be avoided, as the Common Council of the city of Albany have engaged to furnish a proper one.

The Regents of the University, to whom the general care and supervision of this institution is entrusted, were directed by the above act, to appoint a board or executive committee of five persons (of whom the Superintendent of Common Schools shall be one,) to whom are committed the care, management and governmeut of the "Normal School." At a meeting of that body, held June 1, 1844, fifteen members being present, the following persons were unanimously appointed as said Board or Executive Committee The SUPERINTENDENT OF COMMON SCHOOLS, Rev. ALONZO POTTER, D.D., of Union College GIDEON HAWLEY, LL.D.,

Rev. WILLIAM H. CAMPBELL,
FRANCIS DWIGHT, ESQ.

DISTRICT SCHOOL JOURNAL.

ALBANY, JULY, 1814.

DEATH OF JAMES WADSWORTH.

We discharge a most melancholy duty in announcing the decease of the venerable JAMES WADSWORTH, at his residence in Geneseo. MR. WADSWORTH was eminently a great and good man. During a long and eventful life his ener gies, mental and physical, his wealth and his influence were uniformly exerted for the promotion of the great interests of humanity-for the advancement of civilization-the diffusion of know

:

fine model for imitation-a noble specimen of intellectual and moral qualities of the highest order, exerted exclusively for the benefit of his race-for the present advancement-the future welfare, and the permanent advantage of humanity-an encouraging pattern of unobtrusive benevolence, kindly affections, enlightened and comprehensive philanthropy, and practical christian philosophy. "Like a shock of corn fully ripe," this great and good man has been "gathered to his fathers," but over him and such as him, death itself has no power; and while we shall no longer be permitted to look upon his countenance beaming with benignity, and venerable from the reflection of. all the virtues which can adorn humanity, we and our children and children's children shall long enjoy the priceless treasures of intellect and wisdom and knowledge, which his exertions and his influence have bequeathed us. So long as our ad. mirable system of COMMON SCHOOL EDUCATION

-our noble institution of SCHOOL DISTRICT LIBRARIES and our thousands of TEMPLES OF KNOWLEDGE AND VIRTUE, remain as monuments of a superior and progressive civilization -so long will the name and memory of JAMES WADSWORTII, be" familiar as household words" to every citizen of our commonwealth.

MR. FOWLE'S LECTURE.

ledge—and the amelioration of the civil and so cial system in all its departments. His philanthropy comprehended within its expanded circle, all of every faith, every grade, every nation, who needed the aid, assistance or encourage ment which were at his command. His efforts for the extension, the elevation and improvement of popular education, and especially of the common schools, were unremitted and systematic. To his exertions, his influence, and his efficient aid, are we mainly indebted for the establishment and organization of our invaluable district libraries and each successive measure undertaken or proposed for the advancement of our elementary institutions of learning, found in him an able and earnest coadjutor-a liberal supporter-and an enlightened advocate. Deeming the improvement of the means of popular education as the greatest blessing which can be conferred upon an enlightened community, he, at an early period, concentrated his energies upon this great object. But in this, as in every other channel where "the wilderness and the solitary places" of ignorance, of error, or of destitution, mental or physical, were made "to bud and blossom as the rose," through his timely and judicious beneficence, the noiseless course of the current was indicated only by the verdure and luxuriance of the surrounding soil. His benefactions were studiously and systematically averted from the public gaze and nothing pained him more than their exposure, however THE JOURNAL will continue, as heretohonorable to himself, or grateful to the objects fore, to be sent gratuitously, to the several of his bounty. His alms were "in secret;"Town Superintendents of Common Schoolsand He "who seeth in secret" will "reward eight hundred and forty in number-although no him openly."

LET no reader be deterred by the length of this excellent lecture. Once begun it will not be voluntarily laid aside unfinished. It may be, that some will agree with us, in dissenting from Mr. Fowle's opinions on the best method of teaching the alphabet, but all will unite in commending his admirable exposure of the absurdities of the

rote system," in the various branches of education, and the sad perversion by its professors, who are legion, of that noble faculty, memory.

TO TOWN SUPERINTENDENTS AND
THE FRIENDS OF THE JOURNAL.

provision exists in the law for defraying the To particularize instances of his unwearied heavy additional charge thus incurred the State and discriminating benevolence, in every de- subscription including only a number sufficient to partment of social life, would be to write his supply one copy to each school district. The enbiography: and that, however grateful the task, largement of the paper and the consequent inwe are compelled to leave to abler hands. Increased expenses incident to its publication, neall the relations of life his example afforded a cessarily throws the entire burthen of this addi

tional charge, upon the editor and proprietor.ing it for their own benefit or that of their famiAppreciating as he does, in common with the lies, but who conceive themselves unable to incur Department, the value and importance of the the expense of subscription. But if this is exservices which the Town Superintendents are pecting too much, may we not confidently call rendering to the great cause of popular educa-upon every Town Superintendent to obtain at tion, he does not hesitate cheerfully to encounter least FOUR SUBSCRIBERS, for if even this is done, the risk, whatever it may be, involved in the the Journal can be maintained in its present adoption of this course, on his part; confidently re- form, and its pages enriched by contributions lying upon the ability and the disposition of these from the best writers of our country. officers to promote and extend the circulation of the Journal, if in their judgment it is worthy of a more general diffusion. It is earnestly to be hoped that in this reasonable expectation he will not be disappointed. If the work is in any degree worthy of the high confidence which has been reposed in it by the State, its circulation ought not to be limited to one or two individuals in each school district, who are required to keep it principally in their own possession, in order that it may be safely preserved for binding at the end of the year. It should be in the possession of every family in the district.

We should not make this urgent appeal, were not an effort absolutely necessary to prevent a heavy loss consequent upon our undertaking to supply the districts with nearly double the amount of information heretofore diffused through the columns of the Journal.

DISTRICT LIBRARIES.

THE institution of district libraries is one of the most valuable improvements which the friends of the common school system have engrafted upon it. That a scheme so beneficial in its naA very little exertion on the part of each Town ture, and so admirably calculated for permanent Superintendent to procure subscribers in each usefulness should so long have been neglected, district, would enable its conductors to furnish an is matter of surprise and astonishment. Its sucamount and a quality of reading matter unequal-cess thus far has corresponded to the most sanled in interest and value by any periodical in the guine anticipations of its friends, and its conUnion and this they, on their part, unhesitatinuance will, beyond all doubt, infuse new life. tingly engage to do, provided their exertions are in any degree properly seconded by those for whom they labor. May we not appeal, not merely to Town and County Superintendents, but to the trustees and other officers, and to the inhabitants of districts generally, for substantial aid and encouragement to enable us to procure the best talents of the country-to procure the greatest possible amount of valuable and useful information-to avail ourselves of the richest fruits of literature, science and the arts-to call forth native genius and latent talent-to diffuse far and wide throughout the land, a knowledge of the most sound and successful methods of developing the mental and moral faculties of our youth-and to supply the domestic and social circle with ample materials for thought, for reflection, for information and practical usefulness?

and animation in the moral and intellectual pursuits of our youth. The presence of these libraries, and the facilities which are afforded for access to them at all times, not only gratifies but creates a lively relish and taste for the cultiva tion of the mind, which as it expands and matures, will open the way to the most extended development of the higher faculties of thought and reason. It is of the utmost importance that this refined taste should receive an early and efficient encouragement. The innate activity of the mental powers will not be satisfied, unless constantly furnished with subjects upon which their energies can be exerted; and the readiness with which every first impression for good or for evil is received and adopted, inculcates strongly the necessity of affording a proper direction to those powers, and of guiding them by an alluring path, to the attainment of right views.

As an additional inducement to the exertions of our friends and the friends of education to coIn connection, however, with the innumeraoperate with us in this undertaking, and with ble benefits which may reasonably be anticipatthe view of a more general diffusion of our ed, from bringing within the reach of the young work, we will engage to forward fifteen copies a constant supply of reading materials, it is easy of the Journal to the order of any district or per- to perceive, that most serious evils may spring son transmitting to us five dollars. In this way up, unless a judicious supervision is uniformly five copies of the Journal may be distributed maintained over the details of the system. The among such of the inhabitants of each district proper selection of a library, adapted to the readopting this plan, as may be desirous of perus-spective ages, and probable destination and pur

suits of those for whom it is intended, is, in the first instance, an object which cannot receive too much attention. Devolving, as it too often must, upon those who are not possessed of the requisite qualifications to discharge this responsible duty in the best manner, an irreparable injury may unconsciously be inflicted on the tender and susceptible minds of youth. The kind and quality of reading or study, too, which might be proper and beneficial at one age, or to one person, will be found entirely unsuited to the wants and capacities of another; and an early repugnance, or a wrong bias, may thus insensibly be communicated. The only practicable remedy for this evil, where it may be apprehended to exist, would it is believed be, for the trustees to commit the selection and arrangement of the library, to such individuals, whether officially connected with the schools or otherwise, as from their education, judgment and pursuits, would be best adapted to execute the trust with fidelity and ability.

most remote parts of our country towns, and some central village or settlement; and each inhabitant or family being provided with a printed catalogue of the library, books may be sent for, and returned with little more difficulty or embarrassment than is experienced under the present system. By a judicious and discriminating investment of the funds thus united, a sufficient number of volumes would soon be procured to meet all the exigencies of the population; and so exhaustless and abundant would the supply soon become, that no questions need arise respecting the proportion of the fund annually contributed by the respective districts. Each district would, moreover, retain the library it now has, thereby providing a source of constant supply whenever for any reason resort could not be had to the town library.

There may be objections to the plan here sug gested, which have failed to present themselves to our notice, and if so, we should be happy to be reminded of them from any source. But it has seemed to us, that such a combination and concentration of our library fund, as we have briefly attempted to sketch, would have the ef fect of removing many of the impediments which arise from the necessarily meagre stock of books, which a large proportion of our country district libraries present; and that, instead of ten, fifteen or twenty adjoining libraries, with substantially the same collection of books, often frivo

secure for each of our eight hundred and forty towns, a noble, extensive and valuable library, to which all classes of community might resort with the certainty of a high degree of intellectual and moral gratification and instruction.

It has been suggested, and the suggestion strikes us as well worthy of consideration and discussion, that the several school districts of the respective towns, unite the library funds which they may hereafter receive and which they may determine to apply to the purchase of books, and place the same in the hands of the town superintendent or some other competent and responsible person, to be expended in the purchase and annual augmentation of a TOWN SCHOOL LI-lous, common-place and uninteresting, we might BRARY, to be centrally and conveniently located and placed under the supervision of a librarian, to be appointed by the trustees of the several districts, or designated by the town superintendent.. The adoption of some such plan as this would, it is evident, add very materially to the If due attention is given to the advantages value of our libraries; would place from ten to which such libraries are capable, under proper twenty, and in some instances, thirty times the management, of affording, and judicious and present amount and variety of reading matter, seasonable efforts made to divest them of an unwithin the reach of the inhabitants of the seve- favorable and injurious influence, they may beral districts, and would ensure to each town, come a more effectual instrument for creating a within the compass of a few years, a library sound and wholesome literary taste, than has fully equal, if not superior, to the best now in yet been devised in our systems of popular eduthe state. There may be some towns, where cation. They will be found to minister not only from the great extent of surface which they oc to the intellectual, but to the moral requirements cupy, or from the absence of the necessary of those within the sphere of their benefits; thoroughfares connecting together different por- and while they assist in rendering the course of tions of the territory, such an arrangement might early instruction interesting and pleasant, they be objectionable; but in these, two or more li-will insensibly divert the mind from improper braries might be established, and as near an ap- and pernicious aspirations, strengthen and keep proximation as practicable made to the principle in constant and healthy exercise its reflecting in view. Ordinarily, it is believed, facilities powers, and prepare it for those nobler and more for communication at least as often as once in daring lights, to which its high ambition points, each month, will be found to exist between the The hill of science is, indeed., but a barren

heath, until it is adorned with the perennial fruits of christian morality, and the rich flowers of imagination, taste and refinement; and it is im. possible that we should contemplate its steep ascent with pleasure, until we can indistinctly, at least, discern its expanding beauties, and comprehend, in some measure, the rich variety and wide extent of view which it presents on every side. The munificent liberality of the state has provided us with the most ample means of accomplishing this desirable result, and it only remains for us so to appropriate and apply those means, as to secure the utmost attainable mental and moral advantages.

R.

INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL EDU-
CATION.

We take the following beautiful extract from an admirable work on education, by Thomas Wyse, Esq. M. P.; published in London. It is full of instruction, and replete with the most sound views of educational philosophy.

"Intellectual and moral education may rank before physical; but they are not more essential. The physical powers are the hewers of wood and the drawers of water for the spiritual. The base of the column is in the earth; but without it neither could the shaft stand firm above it, nor the capital ascend to the sky.

'The education which confines to the desk or chapel is a very partial education; it is only a chapter in the system. It is pernicious; it is a portion only of the blessings of education. If such be the result of separating physical and intellectual education, how much more so of dividing intellectual and moral! It is laboriously providing for the community dangers and crimes. It entrusts power with the perfect certainty of its being abused. It brings into the very heart of our social existence the two hostile principles of Manicheism; it sets up the glory and beauty of civilization, to be dashed to pieces by the 'evil spirit' to whom it gives authority over it. It disciplines the bad passions of our nature against the good, making men wicked by rule, rendering vice system, intrusting to the clever head, the strong hand, and setting both loose by the impulse of the bad heart below. The omission of physical education renders the other two in effective or precarious; but the neglect of moral education converts physical and intellectual into positive evils. The pestilence of a high-taught but corrupt mind-blowing where it listeth' scathes and sears the soul of men: it is felt for miles and years almost interminable. By the press, (the steam of the intellectual world,) it touches distant ages and other hemispheres. It corrupts the species in mass. It is not only in the actual generation, but in the rickety offspring which follow late and long, that its deep-eating poison-its Mephistophiles breath-is strong y detected. Late ages wonder at the waste of great means, at the perversion of high opportunities and noble powers, at the dereliction of solemn duties, which every where characterize these strong, but evil beings. Call them con

querors-call them philosophers-call them pa triots-put on what golden seeming you maywhen the mask falls off, as it always does in due season, we see behind it the worst combination which can disgust or afflict humanity. Such men-deliverers and enlighteners, as their sycophants hail them-such men are the true master workers of the vices and calamities of their age and country. But who made them? They who taught them. Education left out its very essence. It gave them knowledge, but it left them immorality.

"What is true of individuals is still truer of societies. A reading and writing community may be a very vicious community, if morality -not merely its theory, but its practice-be not made as much a portion of education as reading and writing. Knowledge is only a branch of education, but it has too often been taken for the whole. Hence the innumerable contests on the advantages and disadvantages of Education. If the terms of the proposition had been clearly stated at the beginning, these differences could not have arisen. The advocates of education appeal for proofs of its advantages to the effects resulting from the extension of reading and writing only. These effects are by no means as favorable as it is assumed. The opponents of education, taking advantage of this circumstance, maintain that education in general is injurious. If both parties had determined that by education should be understood, not only knowledge, but morality, there could not have been a question between them of the advantages of its diffusion. Both, therefore, to a certain degree are right, and both are wrong. That the extension of true education-of complete education-is a blessing, cannot be doubted'; but that the extension of intellectual education, without moral-the extension of the half-education, or the false education now in use-is such, is a very different question.

To

"But is moral education possible, without intellectual? There are those who think they can and ought to separate them. But they judge erroneously, and, thank God, attempt impossibilities. Half of our being cannot thus be torn from the other. They are intertwisted: it is difficult to say where one begins and the other ends " * "Intellectual education teaches first to observe and enquire, and then to conclude. Just conclusions lead to just actionsjust actions are virtue. A community so formed will not fall into those national prejudices which not only strike with astonishment other times and nations, but, when the fit is over, surprise and humble themselves. The wise king asked for understanding, above all treasures. him it was morality-virtue-religion. He was right. Without it morality is mere passionvirtue an accident or a name-religion gropes blindly into fanaticism, or floats off from disappointment into incredulity. A faith which is merely the echo of an echo-which is thought, but not believed-which is custom, but not conviction-rests passively, but not firmly in the mind of the professor. It is not thrown off, neither is it kept. It remains there, if no storm threaten: but the first blast which disturbs, destroys. No one would willingly trust the character of a child to the decision of such chancesmuch less the character of a community. How much wiser to build upon the base which God